THE PRESS. 693 



whose whole heart and soul is bound up in the cause of 

 labor. They are induced to start a paper in their locality 

 by the promise of support from their brother workmen. 

 They start out small at first, because, being poor men, they 

 have not the means to do otherwise. Their first issue 

 appears, and then the second, but the men who have prom- 

 ised them their support are waiting to see whether the 

 paper is going to be a success or not before they pay in 

 their subscription, and while the little paper is struggling 

 to secure a position in the newspaper field, those who should 

 assist it are standing aloof and giving their money t6 their 

 enemies, while the paper that is fighting their battles is 

 left to go it alone or die with its swaddling clothes on. 



u Go into any community and you will hear the labor- 

 ing class cursing the capitalist papers for misrepresenting 

 them before the public ; but look into the houses of these 

 same men and you will find on their tables the capitalist 

 press, bought by their money. They will tell you that 

 they want a good labor paper, but they will not give one 

 cent to help make one. What they want is for some poor, 

 honest fellow to start a paper, pay the expense of the same 

 for a few years, increase its circulation to a hundred 

 thousand without any subscribers, make it a blanket sheet 

 with seventy-two columns of pure reading matter, all 

 devoted to their interests, and then when it contains a few 

 more lines of news than the capitalist sheets, they may be 

 induced to take it, provided the editor will let them have 

 it at first cost, and thus show that he is working for them 

 only. 



Now some may think this picture overdrawn, but 

 there is not a labor editor in the country but what will 

 tell you that there is more truth than poetry in it, so far 

 as his experience is concerned. There might be a power- 

 ful labor press in this country if those for whom such 

 papers are published would support them; and until the 



